{"id":64821,"date":"2023-12-20T12:45:10","date_gmt":"2023-12-20T18:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/?p=64821"},"modified":"2023-12-20T12:45:10","modified_gmt":"2023-12-20T18:45:10","slug":"on-enemies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/on-enemies\/","title":{"rendered":"On Enemies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\t<p>by Terry Wane Benton<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>They made up their mind not to like me for no good reason, but God loves me greatly for deep reasons. Who do I trust?<\/li>\n<li>They undermine me, but God upholds me! Who matters to me the most?<\/li>\n<li>They choose to keep me out, but God chooses to keep me near. Who has the greater hold on my heart?<\/li>\n<li>They backstab me with their words to others, but God draws me in with gentle cords of love. Who wins in the battle for my emotional well-being?<\/li>\n<li>They want to see me fail, but God wants to see me succeed. Who has my greater interest?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Jesus tells us that we cannot avoid having people choose to be our enemies. He had plenty! But once we accept that reality, He wants us to have goodwill (love) for them (Matthew 5:44-48) because despite their ignorance, there is a chance that by doing good to them we can win a few over from the dark side to the side of love and light! If we can see past their ignorance to their eternal value, we too can pray, &#8220;<em>Father forgive them for they know not what they do!<\/em>&#8221; Such a prayer makes you better and puts you in better charge of your emotions and actions towards others.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Terry Wane Benton They made up their mind not to like me for no good reason, but God loves me greatly for deep reasons. Who do I trust? They undermine me, but God upholds me! Who matters to me the most? They choose to keep me out, but God chooses to keep me near.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[535],"class_list":["post-64821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-enemies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":84074,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/romanticizing-love\/","url_meta":{"origin":64821,"position":0},"title":"Romanticizing Love","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 5, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton Different things come to mind when we think of \"love.\" We often think of love as a feeling of infatuation, where we are walking with our heads in the clouds with a romantic feeling toward someone. But, while that may be pleasant, it is not the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":28209,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/if-you-are-to-love-your-enemies-why-did-david-kill-goliath\/","url_meta":{"origin":64821,"position":1},"title":"If you are to love your enemies, why did David kill Goliath?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 26, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I was listening to a sermon about how to be\u00a0a man after God's heart. He was speaking about love,\u00a0and\u00a0he said David loved Saul\u00a0even when Saul tried to kill him and searched for\u00a0him for years.\u00a0Even if Saul\u00a0became David's enemy, David would never\u00a0do the same against Saul. He loved Saul and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":86122,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/should-we-hate-satan\/","url_meta":{"origin":64821,"position":2},"title":"Should we hate Satan?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 27, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Should we hate Satan? To me, it sure seems like we should hate the devil because he is the embodiment of sin (I John 3:8).\u00a0 Satan is lost; he's never coming over to God's side. It just conflicts with our desire to love our enemies as we're told to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":51687,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-is-the-hardest-command\/","url_meta":{"origin":64821,"position":3},"title":"What Is the Hardest Command?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 6, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jefferson David Tant From time to time, we see articles written about love. We remember a lawyer asking Jesus a question, \"trying him: Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law? And he said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/KirklandMemorial-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":61606,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/kindness-is-a-virtue\/","url_meta":{"origin":64821,"position":4},"title":"Kindness Is a Virtue","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"June 28, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jefferson David Tant It is well known that several passages in God's Word mention the virtue of kindness. One that is quite well known is Galatians 5:22-23: \"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/raccoon-300x200.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":80974,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/trusting-people-who-lost-your-trust\/","url_meta":{"origin":64821,"position":5},"title":"Trusting People Who Lost Your Trust","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"December 5, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton Love covers a multitude of sins, but does love require you to let yourself get burned over and over? Love is goodwill, wanting good things for the other person, but love does not mean we have to be vulnerable to people who prove themselves to be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64821\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}